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LIFE OF COLONEL MACERONI.

was understood that, whenever any other sportsman passingby should find a snipe in a springe, he might freely hag itand as many more as he pleased by leaving twopence in theplace of every snipe so taken. The same is the practicewith several kinds of moor-hens, each of which has its con-ventional price, and never was a poor man known to bedefrauded of his prey or of its price ! In the neighbourhoodof Rome, scores of thousands of wheatears are taken by thepeasants with similar springes, and many a dozen have Itaken up when shooting quails. The price expected to beleft for every wlieatear is one bajocco (a halfpenny).Nightingales swarm in the Maremme so prodigiously inApril and May as to drown every other noise by their sing-ing, without intermission, day and night. They are broughtin great quantities to the markets of Rome and Naples andsell for about one penny to two pence the dozen. Numerousare the delicious dishes made by the Italian cooks, withsmall birds, cock’s combs, &c., &c., dressed with truffles,mushrooms, combined either with rice, maccaroni, orpolenta, which is the flour of maize, or Indian corn. Itmust be allowed that one of the reasons which keeps theEnglish kitchen in such a state of primitive simplicity—roast mutton, beef steaks, mutton chops, boiled meat, roastmeat, plum pudding, boiled cabbage, &c “ et nunc, etsemper, et in secula seculorum, amen ”—is the want of theinnumerable ingredients and miscellaneous articles of foodwhich the climate and soil of Italy afford.

About December, 1808, a conspiracy, hatched in Sicily and directed from Ponza where Prince Canosa and SirHudson Lowe commanded a choice band of brigands,was discovered at Naples. The chief parties implicatedwere arrested, and being openly tried, were convictedof having meditated an attack upon the king’s life. Iassisted at the trial, and I must say, that every advantage